Surface maintenance vehicles and cleaning devices have a long history subject to gradual innovation and improvement toward improved and oftentimes automated performance in removing debris and contamination from floors. These vehicles and devices may be self-powered, towed, or pushed, and/or manually powered and may carry a human operator during cleaning operations. Such vehicles and devices include scrubbers, extractors, sweepers and vacuums, as well as combinations thereof, intended for cleaning, scrubbing, wiping and/or drying a portion of a substantially flat surface both indoors and outdoors. Many such vehicles and devices employ a squeegee assembly for removing solution from a floor which has been cleaned by application of a cleaning solution of water and a detergent in conjunction with scrubbing action of one or more moving brushes. Accordingly, the squeegee assembly of such prior art cleaning vehicles often mounts at or near the rear of the surface maintenance vehicle to direct the solution to a removal location where the solution (including suspended dirt, particles and contaminants) is removed. In this disclosure, the term “loaded cleaning solution” shall apply to such a cleaning solution after application thereof to a floor or other surface to be cleaned. The cleaning solution is typically supplied to the floor surface through or near rotary scrub brushes operating from a lower portion of the vehicle. The squeegee assembly may include a squeegee supporting member of generally arcuate configuration with two squeegee blades spaced apart and affixed to the supporting member to promote consistent contact with the surface to be cleaned and wiped.
In some prior art cleaning vehicles having two squeegee blades, a vacuum source may couple to the wiping assembly to lift the loaded cleaning solution from the space between the blades to a remote reservoir or other collection unit. The squeegee assembly is often sufficiently wide to at least fully cover the path width of the scrub brushes and/or the wheels of the cleaning vehicle.
The use of squeegee assemblies for wiping a surface and collecting dirty solution is conventional in many applications including but not limited to floor surface cleaning machines such as floor scrubbers. Ideally, the blades of the squeegee assembly are always in full contact with the floor surface and any moisture on the floor surface is exposed to, picked up and carried by air flow in the squeegee assembly. The floor surface plays a major factor in the ability of the squeegee assembly to function as desired. Squeegee assemblies function ideally with a level, smooth floor surface. However, floor surfaces are of a variety of types which are not level and/or completely smooth such as by design as in the case of grouted tile or textured floors, by necessity or damage such as in the case of seams and/or cracks, by wear such as rough or pitted surfaces, and the like. In many instances, the blades are damaged and need to be replaced. In the past, squeegee disassembly and replacement of the blades has been a tedious, time consuming task.
Thus, there is a need for an improved squeegee assembly which has improved assembly and disassembly features.